


Static

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life under the Wraith is desperate and often despairing, but the people who roamed all over Athos' face, learning his ridged brow, the slope of his nose and mouth, always find a reason for joy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Static

It is not long after she accepts the strange token Elizabeth gives her that Teyla understands the significance. Not the one Elizabeth had intended -- that was a celebration, a thank you done up in what Teyla now knows is cheap plastic that would be gem stones if Elizabeth had her way. It is a paltry -- through no fault of Elizabeth's -- acknowledgment of three years gone.

No, the one Teyla finally recognizes is very different.

The Athosians are a nomadic people, as restless as the winds that chase them. Even now, on their new world, Teyla is told of each new place visited, each new configuration of houses, and who lays inside of them. Sometimes it is far too long before a message can be sent, but always one comes.

Teyla, some nights, clings to the buttery-soft leather Halling always wraps the messages in, breathing in the cheva smoke that is as welcome as the scent of her own skin. It means _brother_ to her, although she is sure Elizabeth would say _brother-in-law_. Teyla is not certain of the etymological distinction, but she never argues when Elizabeth weaves words the way old Charin once wove cloth.

From the time Teyla began remembering the world around her, always things were new and different. Her people are farmers, yes, and tend herds to feed themselves, but home has always and will always be in the people who fill the houses they build, not the houses themselves. Home is the sound of the young children, singing greeting to the morning sun, evening welcomed with the basso cries of men released from hard labor.

Life under the Wraith is desperate and often despairing, but the people who roamed all over Athos' face, learning his ridged brow, the slope of his nose and mouth, always find a reason for joy.

Quiet amongst her blankets, Teyla turns the white trinket over and over through her fingers. It is static, steady for all she suspects it will break in a breath or three. It is timeless, the way these new humans are, for all their faces might change, the way Atlantis herself is.

She knows from her own stints upon the mainland that this world is not without its own changes, it's own dangers. Far from it, in fact. But as Teyla rises and turns her face to the window, welcoming the setting sun with a hummed line she cannot give justice to, not with her poor soprano, she understands the restlessness that has plagued her for the last few nights.

A paltry thing, perhaps, but with understanding might come relief.

Three years is the longest Teyla has ever been in only one place before. Worse, the place where Atlantis resides is caught in a timeless moment of eternal summer. She knows, from eavesdropped conversations, that Atlantis is near what is called the 'equator' and the axis of this world leaves her position nearly unchanging. There are dozens of reasons as to why that is, all good, sound scientific reasons that she is sure Rodney will tell her with great enthusiasm, should she ask.

But the end result is that Atlantis' days are nearly unchanging: her weather almost always warm and pleasant, the skies never completely clear, no, and the patterns of clouds and the breeze that moves them offers some unique behaviors, but the degrees are minute. Ignorable.

There is no stiff breeze to push leaves dyed crimson and copper across a fading field of green, no blanket of cloud-white to send them all scurrying for fires and loca-juice fermented rich and dark. There is no month after month of dreary rain -- although, on second thought, they _do_ have that. John calls is a California winter, although its placement is nearer to spring, and speaks fondly of surfing under a mottled sky of grey, even as his body twitches restless at windows that show no deviation, sun hidden from them all.

So. Perhaps there are seasons, if slighter ones than she is used to.

The knock is unexpected, but she remains still and silent before calling, "Enter."

The door slides open to reveal John's spikey head, almost completely buried under a -- coat?

"Parka," John says, grinning cheerfully as he hands a similar garment to her. "McKay says where we're going is the dead of winter, so bundle up. Be ready in twenty?"

"Yes, of course," to answer both questions, and takes the 'parka' from him. It is startlingly smooth against her fingers, but the inside is soft and warm enough that she suspects she will be sweating by the time she reaches the 'gate room. "Must we bundle up so quickly?"

John's grin turns wicked, a subtle shift she doubts others so readily see. "We must, because that's the only way I could get Rodney to dress up first. Radek wants pictures."

Teyla raises an eyebrow.

"He looks like Frosty the Grumpy Snowman," John laughs, his meaning as obscure as always, but his mirth is welcoming, also as always.

She lives with strange, incomprehensible people, but they are good, as is this home she has created for herself.

Perhaps that is why she stays, when she has never felt the need for such familiarity before. The people of Earth are mercurial in nature, their pursuits always changing -- 

And every few days she and her team go through the 'gate, on their own feet or winged by a machine John flies like an extension of his body. They have seen all types of seasons, this way, all manner of people and situations to sooth the itch in her feet.

Idly, Teyla wonders if there will be time enough for a snowball fight. It would be quite enjoyable, she thinks, and it is likely she can persuaded Ronon to be on her side.

"Come on, you gotta see this!" John calls from the hallway. He never goes off, expecting her to follow -- he always waits, if impatiently, a respect she doubts he understands, nor why she would value it so highly.

But she does.

Slipping the trinket into her pocket, Teyla checks her weapons one last time before going to see what Rodney looks like, probably red-faced and deeply uncomfortable as he lumbers about in parkas that make movement difficult, as gleeful as he will undoubtedly be quite, quite annoyed.

Perhaps she will be able to send Halling a picture, if she is clever enough to nab one before Rodney invariably deletes them all from the server. Then it, too, can become a part of new Athos, a member of the family that is far more important than the walls that surround it.


End file.
